Different is Often Perceived as Better

During any given year, you will see a number of items that are being sold on TV. The may later get to the stores to sell, but they make their debuts on television. Some seem really quirky: Chia Pets, Topsy-Turvy, Shoes Under, Bump-it, Pedi-egg, Touch-n-Brush, & Wizzit.

Have you purchased any of these? Why? They probably caught your attention. You may have been won over by the commercials and 'seeing' their results. You may have thought 'now is the time I need one of those'. Regardless of the reason, you are not alone, as millions of people have bought these and other similar products for years. The real question is did it work for you? Did it work for everyone who bought it? Did you use it to its capacity or did it end up taking up space or going to a garage sale pile?

Have you ever wondered why foreign films get such high awards? They usually don't have anywhere close to the visual imagery that our films tend to have, with all the action/adventure, etc. Roger Ebert was asked a similar question, here was his response..."how many movies are you normally seeing in any given week?" Most of us would answer the same as the person he was addressing, "One". "Don't you see? That's your problem," Ebert responded. "Many of the people in this profession are seeing one or two movies a day. Those little, offbeat, quirky, odd foreign or independent films capture our attention because they are a bit different! When you are overwhelmed with such boring similarity, you begin to perceive that different is better!"

Distinction and being distinguished allows one to stand out. Understand there are good and bad ways of doing that. What I want the church to think about is the idea of being different, distinct, distinguished, while being attractive. Like I said a week ago, we are not to appear 'cooky' or 'holy roller', but to appear approachable, fun, and passionate about our faith. To make everything fit in our faith-bucket, instead of trying to make our faith fit into everything.

Individually, we can make a big difference. Collectively, we must think about being different by doing things that are out-of-the-box. They can be service opportunities. They can be buying shirts with our church name on them (and wearing them). They can be visiting visitors when they came by. They can be putting on city-wide events. They can be a number of things.

Just as the "As seen on TV" products are different, so they appear better, let's see what God opens up for us with ideas and opportunities that may be different, but different is often perceived as better!